Dell helps Skyscanner architect converged data centers. Dell announced that travel-search site Skyscanner has selected it to architect and build new converged data centers in the UK and Singapore and has plans in the works to deploy in Hong Kong in January 2014. Moving away from hosted IT resources and building its own data centers in Europe and Asia Skyscanner sought an IT partner to support its ambitious global growth. After a review of the market and a proof of concept with Dell blade and networking equipment Skyscanner selected Dell. Dell’s end-to-end, scalable solutions were put into place at Skyscanner’s new data center sites. Each site was equipped with multiple Dell Converged Blade Data Center solutions, which combine Dell EqualLogic blade arrays, servers, switching and management to provide an entire data centre within a single blade enclosure and helping to streamline IT management and operations.

“Web-based services across the world are experiencing great market opportunities as consumers and businesses increasingly spend online,” said Aisling Keegan, General Manager and Executive Director for Preferred Accounts, Dell UK. “As these organisations grow and become more successful, the challenge of providing a consistently high quality of service becomes crucial to long-term success. Dell’s converged end-to-end solutions and services provide the scalability, flexibility and performance required to help organisations deploy powerful data centre environments to support heavy demand and accommodate rapid business growth.”

SanDisk releases ULLtraDIMM solid state drive. SanDisk (SNDK) announced that its ULLtraDIMM Solid State Drive (SSD), an enterprise-class, ultra-low latency, memory channel storage solution, is now shipping for qualification with select enterprise servers. The addition of flash technology on the DRAM memory channel expands the growing penetration of flash storage technology in enterprise data centers, and complements SanDisk’s existing flash-based server hardware and software storage solutions. IBM recently announced that the eXFlash DIMM is an option for its System x3850 and x3950 X6 servers providing up to 12.8TB of flash capacity.

“The SanDisk ULLtraDIMM SSD was designed to expand the reach of ultra-low latency flash storage throughout the data center and scale to meet the requirements of any enterprise application, no matter how bandwidth or capacity intensive,” said John Scaramuzzo, senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions at SanDisk. “The ULLtraDIMM SSD’s linear performance scalability and innovative DIMM form factor allow organizations to deploy flash as their application requirements change, without requiring significant infrastructure investment.”